He knew better. But he was tired. As if that were an excuse. It was bedtime at the end of a long day when the field naturalist’s wife announced that there was a rodent in the bedroom, which they were going to have to catch before they could climb into bed. Such are the portents of the changing season.
First short declarative sentence: “Forget it; we’ll catch it in the morning,” says the naturalist.
He points out, quite correctly, that they have mice in the house all the time; so they should just fall asleep and deal with the creature in the morning when they are both fresh. “Because it is not a mouse,” she tells him firmly, “It’s a chipmunk,” and no way is she going to sleep with a large chipmunk running around the bedroom all night. To argue this point makes the naturalist feel like a big game hunter who is too tired to stalk dinner.
“It’s in the heat register,” she tells him, pointing at the baseboard that runs the length of the room in and out of an alcove.
Second short declarative sentence: “No way am I taking the entire heat register apart,” he says with finality.
Which is a tactical mistake he shortly realizes as his wife furiously initiates the disassembly process herself. Since the naturalist knows that these are devilishly difficult pieces of intricately interlocked pieces of steel, and also understands there is no mystery about who will be responsible for its reassembly, self interest dictates that he take the register apart.
Whereupon he comes across a striking piece of evidence—mouse droppings—to bolster his case for calling an early end to this fool’s errand. After all, he says, we fall asleep many nights with the sounds of scurrying feet in the walls of our old house.
Thus his third short declarative sentence: “This is mouse scat; it’s too small for a chipmunk.”
Which does nothing to deflect her determination, nor her quickening scorn, as the field naturalist is shown the one black and pair of white stripes on a furry brown background that are now visibly panting in the corner of the heat register.
As the field naturalist swallows the abject taste defeat, he almost immediately and sickeningly realizes that he has neglected to close the bedroom door before the nocturnal stalking had begun, and the large mouse-like rodent with black and white stripes down its furry brown back seizes the opportunity of its discovery to bolt from the register and out the open doorway into the cavernous house at large.
After recovering from his momentary paralysis, the naturalist races out behind it—to no avail. Under a withering barrage of questions, however, he admits he might have noticed the blur of a shadow passing across the landing at the top of the stairs toward one of three open doors on the far side of the unlit landing.
“After it crossed the landing,” she announces quickly, “it would have turned right and headed into the far bedroom.” It turned right?” the field naturalist repeats incredulously. The naturalist knows many things about creatures in the wild, but knows he is not one with the mind of a scared and cornered chipmunk-like rodent. But the naturalist and his cleverer domestic partner slip into the corner bedroom, carefully close the door and turn on the light. To their dismay they confront a disturbing scene on the floor in which the family’s most recent college graduate has deposited all his worldly goods and dirty laundry, most of which is in a pile under his desk.
“It’s in the heat register,” she says firmly.
The field naturalist suggests the rodent would have gone for the pile of clothes, and since this is not their bedroom, suggests they just close the door and sort it out in the morning. It also occurs to him that the college student who was out that very night celebrating four complete laps around the college track could be dragooned the following day into solving their little domestic problem. That would teach him to come home!
However, there is no way the field naturalist can avoid disassembling the second heat register, piece by intricate, interlocking piece. When they get to the last piece in the corner, there is, of course, no rodent in sight, just as he had anticipated, and no way to know which room the despicable rodent might be in.
Fourth short declarative sentence: “It is not in the heat register,” the naturalist announces exhaustedly.
Whereupon a sharper-eyed domestic naturalist spies just the tiniest tip of a brown tail barely visible from back behind the corner of the register into which the creature had somehow impossibly jujitsu-ed itself.
“Quick,” she says. “get me a waste paper basket and something I can use as a lid.”
Fifth short declarative sentence: “There is no way you are going to catch a chipmunk with a wastepaper basket.”
Really, would you think this is going to happen. Right?
But the naturalist is instructed to block off the corner of the room with the college graduate’s art portfolio and his sea chest and watches as the chipmunk races frantically back and forth in the confined space, and miraculously jumps into the wastebasket, and with an improvised lid now clamped over it. They race down the stairs and open the door in desperate haste before the clever rodent figures out how to pry open the lid.
Only to find the household’s pair of cats on the door stoop, alerted by the sound of scurrying feet inside the wicker basket to the prospect of a warm-blooded dinner.
At this point the field naturalist considers uttering another short declarative sentence to the effect that he is not going to drive the chipmunk to the other end of the county to safety.
But he has the good sense to keep his lip buttoned.
Philip Conkling is president and founder of the Island Institute based in Rockland, Maine.